‘Top Chef Colorado’– Episode 1 Betting Odds

–’Top Chef Colorado’ is the title of the 15th season of the ‘Top Chef’ franchise.

–The finale of ‘Top Chef Colorado’ was filmed in Aspen during the Food and Wine Classic.

–Episode 1 of ‘Top Chef Colorado’ will air on December 7, 2017 at 10:00 PM Eastern on Bravo

It’s no secret that I love cooking competitions–at least from an entertainment standpoint. From an oddsmaking standpoint they’re extremely challenging. This may sound somewhat ‘counterintuitive’ but its actually easier to set odds and handicap a ‘reality show’ that has no basis in ‘reality’ like ‘Big Brother’ or ‘Survivor’. In these settings, you can identify a personality profile that historically does well and work from there. There’s no need to dig deeply into the contestants’ personal and professional background–it doesn’t matter if they’re unemployed or a brain surgeon since nothing in the ‘real world’ extrapolates nicely to success (or failure) on the show.

In theory, it should be easier to set odds when a show does require ‘real world’ skill but for whatever reason it doesn’t. The recently completed season of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ is a good example. It’s easy enough to figure out which contestants have real world dancing experience and/or a skill set that translates well to dancing. The problem is that the judging often lacks rhyme or reason. In some seasons, the DWTS judges reward the most improved dancer (eg: David Ross last season). This season, however, they gave the win to the most accomplished dancer (Jordan Fisher). The judges themselves said that ‘Property Brothers’ co-star Drew Scott was the most improved dancer throughout the season. It’s tough to make a case that ‘J-Fish’ improved much at all–he was pretty damn good when he started and remained pretty damn good throughout. Runner up Lindsey Stirling likely had the second best dancing ‘skill set’ and definitely showed improvement throughout the season.
IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT….

Cooking competition shows are even more difficult. In most formats including ‘Top Chef’ and ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ the contestants enter with considerable culinary background. It’s not hard getting extensive professional information to work with–in some cases actual resumes. That being said, it’s important to keep in mind that I’m not hiring a head chef for ‘Jim’s Sports Betting Experts Cafe’. I’m not even trying to make a normative judgement about which contestant is the best chef ‘pound for pound’. It’s a confluence of factors–their real life culinary aptitude combined with the judging criteria and show format. That, of course, assumes that the performances and/or results aren’t manipulated for ‘better television’ which they most definitely are. This is particularly problematic in a cooking competition since you can make a compelling case that the best personality type for culinary success–low key, earnest, hard working–is the diametric opposite from the type of strong personality that plays well on television.

In other words, you’re trying to determine not only each contestant’s intrinsic skills but trying to figure out how they extrapolate to the show format and judging criteria. Then you have to consider personality and charisma and that’s a tough thing to quantify. To some extent, you can use previous winners as a template but not always. I’ve had the most success at ‘skill based’ reality TV oddsmaking my simply going off my instincts to rank the contestants and set the initial set of numbers.

‘TOP CHEF’ ON THE ROAD

This is the fifteenth season of ‘Top Chef’ and there’s a good reason why they’re in Colorado. It’s not that they don’t have great restauarants (they do) but the Colorado Office of Film, Television & Media put up a huge financial incentive package for the show to head to the Mountain Time Zone. Some estimates suggest that the incentive package was worth in the neighborhood of $5 million US and that’s definitely a nice neighborhood to be in.

“The people who know Colorado have always known there was amazing food and talented chefs, but now the culinary scene is really popping and people are starting to recognize Denver as a really great food destination, much like Austin, Seattle and Nashville. Denver and Colorado have been on our radar for awhile now, and this year just felt like lightning in a bottle and was the perfect time to go.”

The thinking is no doubt that $5 million is a small price to pay for the state to get a ‘rep’ as a go to food destination. It’s definitely helped Nashville–the city has gone from one of the ‘most underrated’ food scenes in the US to the top tier.

Here are the odds to win the overall season competition along with odds for Episode One:

About the Author: Jim Murphy

For more than 25 years, Jim Murphy has written extensively on sports betting as well as handicapping theory and practice. Jim Murphy has been quoted in media from the Wall Street Journal to REASON Magazine. Murphy worked as a radio and podcasting host broadcasting to an international audience that depended on his expertise and advice. Murphy is an odds making consultant for sports and 'non-sport novelty bets' focused on the entertainment business, politics, technology, financial markets and more.